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Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Playing with extension tubes

Santa brought me a set of extension tubes for Christmas and it's taken a while to start playing with them and learn how to use them.

John and I set the camera on a tripod and lined up the subject (a clump of tiny mushrooms). We also used the cable shutter release to minimise movement while taking the photos.

It was quite easy. You can zoom in with the LCD screen to focus finely on your subject. You can even lock on the subject in focus and carefully move the camera so it is in a new position on the screen without losing focus.

There were four tubes in the set. By using different sized tubes or a combination of tubes, you can achieve different magnification. By changing the focal length (f) on the camera you can focus on one mushroom only or the entire group.

For our purposes, any flower from the garden would make a good subject....

We collected a few and played a bit more.....﻿

A hibiscus stamen using a very narrow depth of field with just a few clumps of pollen in focus.

Murraya made a great subject

Probably a bit too close -

We took a series of shots at various focal lengths and various exposures to see the difference it made.

a pawpaw flower

﻿

Of course extension tubes are not as effective for macros as a proper macro lens, but then they are very much less expensive. I'm happy to experiment with them and keep learning. For a very amateur photographer like me they are perfect. Thanks again Santa.

4 comments:

Wow, i wish i also have a santa who gives extension tubes! But it will be better if a lens is included as my lens has f3.5-5.6 so it will not be good for extension tubes, hahaha. I am praying for a 50mm f1.6. That will give me so much happiness.

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My name is Missy. Welcome to my garden. This is my blog although I do let Ros write most of the posts. I'm an Australian Silkie Terrier and although I'm cute, I'm not very good at typing. We try to keep family and friends up-to-date on what's happening at our place.My garden is in Karalee on the western fringe of Brisbane, Australia. Climatically, Zone10 – Sub-tropical. Winter temperatures occasional dip below zero C overnight but can warm to mid-20s during the day. In summer the temperature can soar to over 40 degrees C for a few days, but is generally in the low 30’s.The garden was started from a bare block of land in 2005. Our aim is to create a tropical oasis that is as welcoming to local birds and wildlife as it is to the people who visit. It's a work in progress.